Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating: Before and After

The last few weeks have been dragging on with this Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating. I first tested the boat with out the Wetlander kit on it by doing a friction test and water leak test. This was on an Alumacraft 1436 LT riveted jon boat. The drag test went without issue, but this Alumacraft boat was awfully leaky for a boat that was just over a year old…

Once that primer was on, the Wetlander Top coat went on. It went on identically to the Wetlander Primer. The only thing is when you first start to apply the Wetlander Topcoat, its going to look like its beading up, like water on a waxed car, this is normal. Wait for it to dry a little and go back over it with out re-wetting your brush or roller and it will lay down and look better. After you get that first coat of Wetlander Topcoat down, you shouldn’t see that beading up any more and you can go on your way!

So now the Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating is now on this Alumacraft 1436 LT riveted jon boat and its time to test it out. We won’t be able to put it out on the water yet because I need to fix the transom, but I went ahead and did the friction drag test again! Here is the video!

The Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating: Test Results

Test result for the Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating were great! It was tested on a dry, grass yard, with nothing in the boat except the fishing deck I have in it. I measured the pulling force with a scale. This whole process wasn’t the most scientifically controlled experiment but I kept everything that I could the same. The boat weight was the same, the grass was the same, and I used the same scale.

With out the Wetlander Bottom Coating – It took about 130-150 pounds to move the boat. Around 130 lbs to break the friction to start moving and 150 lbs to keep it going when you wanted to pull it faster.

With the Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating Applied – This time around it took 30-50 pounds to move the boat! It took about 30 lbs to get the boat moving and 50 lbs to keep it going when you wanted to pull it faster.

Wetlander Conclusion

Awesome! Thats what I was thinking when I first started to pull this jon boat across the yard with the Wetlander Slick Bottom Coating on it. Its a big drop from 150 lbs of force to 50lbs of force. This means when ever you go over a thick patch of grass, or your plowing your way through a tussock, your boat will slide over it easier; allowing your motor to work a little less while propelling you over that obstacle. That could be the difference between getting beached on a mud flat or a tussock OR making it through and getting back to the boat ramp. If you do so happen to get stuck, this also means that it will be 3 times easier to pull you out hahaha.

I’m sure the numbers I am getting only qualifies for flat bottom boats because the weight is distributed equally compared to a v-hull where a lot of the energy and weight is put on that V. So you may not get the results I got.

This is something permanent that is staying on this jon boat, so we will periodically take a look at it and see how it holds up. Once the transom repair is done, we will take the boat back out on the water and play in some grass and see if we notice any difference!

Cookie and Privacy Settings

How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, you cannot refuse them without impacting how our site functions. You can block or delete them by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Click to enable/disable google webfonts.

Google Map Settings:

Click to enable/disable google maps.

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Click to enable/disable video embeds.

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.